


Promise; red.

by volna (seductrce)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Implied substance abuse, M/M, War AU, am noticing now idk how to summarize this, dont fucking ask me just read and see if it makes senae, edit: i summarized it the best i could help me, idk man, if it doesn't so be it, implied injury, just noticed i didnt have a summary, lots of fucked up shit implied is what im saying its war, more like future post war something au, okay this isnt really war au, or rather war training camp maybe? Uhm, some kisses some tears stuff like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 06:50:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4469420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seductrce/pseuds/volna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sawamura Daichi falls in love forever. Forever doesn't always last. What does one do when forever stops existing? What comes after forever? </p><p>How easy to answer.<br/>It's pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promise; red.

**Author's Note:**

> Worked on for [Kurodai Bingo 2015.](http://thekurodainetwork.tumblr.com/tagged/kurodai-bingo-2015) Got out of hand SLIGHTLY. oops.  
> writing shit as always but w/e 11k is worth not dying in evernote. 
> 
> goodnight.

The way leading up to the cottage was sand and dust. Gravel crunched under his soles, pebble against stone against earth, reminding faintly of dry leaves and the way crushing them inbetween your fingers sounds. The irony of the late autumn childhood memory seemed painfully ridiculous in this mid-summer heat almost twenty years later. Heavy. Everything was heavy, the air in his lungs and the dust up his nose and the sheen of sweat sticking persistently to his forehead, no matter how many times Daichi reached up to dot at it with the rough cotton handkerchief he didn’t care to stuff back into his pocket anymore. 

The sun was sitting up in the cloudless sky like a white fireball, aching and feverish and unhealthily hot, and Daichi could feel the trickle down his back with every step he took up the driveway. His best shirt was probably ruined, as wet as his mouth was dry, sticking to his ribs and shoulder blades and lower back in that way that makes you shift uncomfortably with the knowledge of huge stains of sweat discoloring your only wearable army short-sleeve. Daichi sighed, and wanted to sigh again at the sheer amount of exhaustion breathing in caused but found himself unable to; instead he focused all he could muster on marching along the track lined with petty, ill-looking greens and eternal brushwork, gnarled and withered as if planted centuries ago.

By now, he could hear sounds, and they made him feel like coming home. Clutter of pans and fans and pots and plates, a dark male voice pushing out some rough words that suggested its owner was on the other side of the house, children crying. Or maybe it was just one child, Daichi couldn’t be sure.

Tiny flowers, elder, nightshade, buttercup - yellow, blue and red - were lining the porch. They were sweltering in the heat but at least the awning, held in some undefinable pastel color, was spending some shade on them. A big bush of roses thriving in the arduous air exhaled a pleasant bouquet. Sweet it was, the scent, sweet with vigor and bare hands smeared in dirt and rainfalls on too hot summer nights.  
Daichi’s gaze, quicker than the rest of his body, moved up the front porch steps, regarding the beautiful white door with its ranks of tin and copper roses; the old cool logs of maple and birch, straight like arrows; the home-made webbed chairs; all of it so full of life and careful crafting, all of it shoving daggers into Daichi’s chest, intently like acupuncture needles but infinitely deeper.

He looked at the number last, mounted to the wood, 2652, and nodded slowly to himself, as if there had been any doubts needing dissipation and stood, unmoving, suddenly afraid.  
It should be easy, lifting his feet up those few smooth steps, after all he’s done. It should be easy, knocking on that door and asking for entrance and gratefully accepting the tall glass of fresh home-made lemonade she will undoubtfully offer. It should be easy…

*********

_“If you’re not careful, you’ll get hurt.”_

_Daichi ignores the voice, coming from somewhere to his right, and pulls the trigger four times in careful precision, each shot pulling back on him with the satisfying realness of it. The shots are deadly, the sand-and-cardboard dummies fall back as if thrown over by a rough squall and Daichi straightens with a content sigh._

_“If you’re not careful, I might shoot you”, he says, throwing a last look over the training field and a hand up into the air, thankful for Charlie putting the dolls back in place, before turning away, rifle slung over his shoulder, reaching for the flask hanging heavily by his side._

_“Ah, Sawamura, don’t be like that. You know, I’m just worried about you.”_

_Kuroo pushes away from the fence, winks at him and grins, sly and presumptuous, just as his voice has been, so Daichi steps up one and another until they are chest to chest and he can squint up into Kuroo’s face. Handsome, someone with no taste whatsoever might call it, all high lines and square curves and fire in his eyes and fire in his mouth. Handsome and sharp and blossoming radish pink under Daichi’s stare._

_“You should be more worried about yourself”, Daichi murmurs just for Kuroo to hear, lips barely moving with the weight of Kuroo’s gaze on them, then flashes a smile bright as sunshine and turns on his heels, not having touched Kuroo once.  
  
_ _He counts, as always, while unscrewing his flask, and grins around the opening of it when he hears footsteps follow his just as he thinks ‘four’, two quick steps to catch up to him and more in their wake, half a foot behind._ _  
Daichi has extended his palette of known shades of red since he met Kuroo three months ago in the blossom of June, both of them green boys from green fields with green snot running out their noses and visions of glory, golden and white and royal blue occupying their minds._ _  
Red, Daichi found out, was a terrible color, red was blood and red was war but worst of all was the red Kuroo’s cheeks turned every time Daichi came close, an embarrassed red of a thousand shades, lush strawberries and ripe winter apples and exquisite roses from his grandma’s garden and his favorite candy wrapper, which was a bubblegum pink to be more precise but Daichi was no art student and Kuroo…_

_“Sawamura…hey, Sawamura“, Kuroo whines behind him, obnoxious and topicless, and Daichi sometimes wonders if he’d shut up under circumstances of for example having Daichi’s mouth press on his._

_"Here”, Daichi says for no reason at all and hands Kuroo his water flask, which Kuroo takes, mid-step and mildly surprised as Daichi knows without looking, just from the silence of him._ _  
As they keep walking there’s a noise, deep and expensive and Daichi looks up to his right before he can stop himself._ _Kuroo’s mouth is puckered around the opening of the flask (the same opening Daichi had his mouth on just moments ago and just as he realizes that Daichi already wonders whether or not Kuroo has wiped it clean before drinking), his eyes not quite closed but almost; his neck is long as a river with the slow steady swallow and the dropped drops of water running down the length of it make Daichi look away at once._ _  
Too much too soon, Sawamura, he scolds himself weakly and tries to focus instead on the camp coming into view on the horizon._

_Moments later Daichi’s flask bumps into his hand, considerably lighter now (bastard has no shame) and Daichi just secures it back to his belt when he stops._ _Abruptly and involuntarily, mind, since it’s because of Kuroo’s hand wrapping around his wrist with long-fingered persistence._

_He wants to look up and say something but Kuroo is first how he always is, no matter how hard Daichi tries._ _Kuroo’s mouth, Daichi knows, is soft and gentle, despite all the broad edges and sharp knives usually coming out of it._ _  
It’s soft and gentle against Daichi’s palm, too, this time, a kiss to his now empty hand and another to his wrist right onto the blue river-running veins and a murmured „Thank you.“ like daughter to a prayer, quiet and sincere yet lacking all the needing for redemption and giving all the gratefulness of someone dying of thirst being offered a glass of water._

_Daichi’s hand slips free when Kuroo lets go and Daichi’s heart ba-dumps in his ears and his chest, rabbit quick and much too obvious._ _  
Red, Daichi found out, is a terrible color and he sometimes wonders what shade Kuroo Tetsurou made his cheeks turn._  
  
*********

The crimson petals came back into focus and Daichi breathed in once, deep and suffocating, shaking his head. His mother’s voice suddenly made an appearance, clear and judging, with a raised eyebrow and a click to her tongue „Look at yourself.” and so he did.  
A quick once-over revealed that his soft leather loafers were anything but shiny, despite or maybe due to the stern polishing they had enjoyed this morning; his pants had been dust colored to begin with; his medals hung against his chest, heavy with duty and honor, and Daichi brushed over a particular one with his thumb to wipe it clean. With the same motion he straightened his collar and tie, pushed the sweaty bangs out of his face and clicked his heels together, raising a hand in silent salute to absolutely no one.  
This must be enough, this must be enough, he thought, ‘please’ playing on repeat in his head, dull like a broken drum. With feet like bricks he climbed the steps, and, without hesitation but with a heart clogging up his throat, he knocked, respectful, polite, persistent.  
  
It took her a second, or rather thirty-three of them (not that he’d been counting; not by habit and not otherwise), but there she was, pulling the door open with an expression he failed to read.  
“Daichi, isn’t it?”, she asked and Daichi could not breathe or blink or cry, he couldn’t even make his mouth open and yet there was his response as if read off a card, voice honeyed with courteous diplomacy:  
  
“Yes, Sawamura Daichi. Good morning, Mrs-”  
  
“Oh, call me Aiko.”  
  
She smiled, sad and a little empty and Daichi was thankful for it before realizing what he was thankful for.  
  
“Come in, then”, Aiko said, stepping aside and letting Daichi in, just to grab him by his shoulders the moment he was over the threshold. They were close, face-to-face and she was tall and beautiful and smelled like a forest clearing overgrown with wild flowers, but her eyes were glued to his chest with unbroken intensity until there was a cry from the other end of the hallway, followed by another yell and Aiko finally looked up.  
  
“Excuse me, I just. You understand…”  
  
“Of course. I’m so sorry, Aiko, my-”  
  
“I will hear nothing of that. Not from you. Not again. Well, follow me, then, young man. Would you care for some home-made lemonade? I also have fresh key lime pie…”  
  
„I’d love some, thank you“, Daichi answered, taken aback but not surprised, considering, and followed her down a hallway that was both tastefully empty with openness and yet full of things, keys and jackets and books and single socks but not too many; it looked like someone just took two different ones off the same pair of feet and let them sit there by themselves, sock and sock with no real partner to curl up with. How cruel.  
  
When Daichi stepped into the kitchen, his heart stopped dead.  
  
*********  
  
_Things are interesting when you are a soldier in training._ _  
  
__That’s the only time things are, some veterans will say, since once training is finished all that stays with you is blood and rot and death, but when you set foot into a training camp for the first time everything is still a game._ _  
  
__Daichi is seventeen and the smells of gunpowder and soup kitchen fill his nose and leave him slightly intoxicated, grounding him like anchor bolts._ _  
The camp is literally that, a few tents and an endless amount of_ space _, almost as if they are trying to invite you to try and leave without permission._ _  
  
__“LINE UP!“ is the first command Daichi learns to follow, and he hurries to stop staring, reaches up to adjust the straps of his still new army backpack and lines up, with other young men his age right and left to him._ _  
  
__Their general, Clark, or Snake, as Daichi had heard, is a woman of buff build, tall and broad and dark-skinned, with a look to her eyes that makes you want to run away; she’s feral, Daichi can immediately tell, and intelligent and furious and a wave of relief washes over the whole group when they realize how lucky they are to have this woman on their side and not, in fact, the opposite one.  
__  
__"Cadets”, she begins, as she does a march down the line of them, walking slowly in the way a dangerous animal paces in its cage, looking at each one of them for a few short seconds that seem endless no matter which place in line you took._ _  
“You have been chosen. Yet, you are nothing special. A group of too tall too thin pretty boys…”, her voice trailes off as she stops next to a young man with a broad squished nose that makes him look like a piglet in the least flattering way, before she sets pace again._ _  
“Here you are. A plague to my eye and every other. I’d tell you to get out of my sight but unfortunately I am your general in command and you are my new special elites troup in training._ _  
No one cares for you. No one will pull you along. We teach you. You learn what we teach. You either do or you die, if by my hands or the battlefield’s, we will see._ _  
I do not like to be interrupted. Or talked back to. My word is command and if I see you not following I will personally make sure you regret that decision for the rest of your stay here._ _  
Your tents have name tags on them. Lose your bags. Put on boots, for God’s sake. Be prepared. By the flag pole in 5 minutes.”_ _  
  
__All of them stand in silence, staring. General Clark has reached the end of the line-up but Daichi is still burning with the brutality of her gaze, a long stare right down to his marrow, cutting him open with scissors like scalpels, revealing his insides for everyone to see, all pride and fear and devotion and pain, all bare and there, untouched and uninteresting._ _  
  
__And then there is a voice. Lovely and dark and shaky and rough, „Ma'am…“, it begins and stops, as if its holder is not sure if this is right._ _  
“Sir…”, it tries again, and stops again, as if afraid to be stung by a scorpion. Or bitten by the Snake._ _  
“What are we preparing for?”, it finally manages, and Daichi uses the pause in time as Clark walks over to the guy who has dared and everyone else holds their breath to lean forward and_ see _._ _  
  
__He is tall, though not as tall as Snake, who has an inch or two on him in height even if not in width. His shoulders are broad where the rest is lanky, a mess of black hair sticking up to the heavens, hands in his pockets and a polite smile just this side of a hideous grin on his face.  
__Snake looks down on him and pulls her baton with a flick of her wrist._ _  
The boy doesn’t flinch. Kudos, Daichi thinks._ _  
  
__“Name?”, Clark asks, voice the kind of calm rattlesnakes are when they are truly dangerous._ _  
  
__“Kuroo Tetsurou”, he says and there is the grin, quick and devastating and then, gone. Snake is unimpressed._ _  
  
__“Kuroo Tetsurou, your tent number is seventeen. Your tent mate’s name is Yaku Morisuke. You are preparing for the twenty mile forest marathon you will complete every morning from tomorrow on. If I ever see you standing in line in this posture again, I will make sure you will wish to have remembered to take your hands out of your pockets.”_ _  
  
__At the last words Clark puts the stick under Kuroo’s chin to raise it gently, lovingly almost. Their eye contact doesn’t break for a moment._ _  
  
__“Are we clear?”_ _  
  
__“Yes, Ma’am“, he answers and pulls his hands free, after a second of pause in which Daichi is sure he contemplates trying not to just to feel the consequences for curiosity’s sake._ _  
  
__Snake makes him step back with a final look before raising her voice._ _  
  
__"I do not like repeating myself. Do I need to repeat myself? Why are you still standing here? Clear instructions leave no room for disobedience._ Move. _”_  
_  
__As Daichi jogs off to find his tent he throws a last look back to where Kuroo Tetsurou is still standing, carefully evaluating his surroundings before marching off in the direction of a few tents to Daichi’s left._ _God, Daichi thinks. How glad he is to not be tent mates with that one.  
_  
*********  
  
The boy was maybe four or five years old, tall for his age and a perfect copy. Daichi remembered a picture he had seen what now felt like ages ago, a mother with two beloved children in her arms, a boy of five and a girl of seven, both with the same cheeky smile and pretty gleaming eyes as each other and him.  
  
Aiko stepped up to the chair and kissed her grandchild gently on the head. She then turned back to Daichi and a sad, knowing look took refuge in her eyes. Daichi felt exposed, ashamed, certain.  
Wrong place, wrong time, Sawamura.  
  
“Satoru, say hello to Daichi. He was a very good friend of your uncle’s, so be polite.“  
  
Satoru sprang down from the chair with a “Yes, grandma!” and ran up to Daichi to stop short just in front of him, hands behind his back. Daichi crouched down before he knew he was doing it, the need to push Satoru’s bangs out of his young clever eyes was overwhelming.  
Instead, he put out a hand carefully, afraid to scare the boy. How very squeamish he was, back then, how very little he had known.  
  
“Hi, I’m Daichi. I’m very glad to meet you.”  
  
Satoru took his hand without hesitation, his other running quickly through his already messed up hair and Daichi had to fight to keep the smile on his face steady and unknowing.  
  
“Hi, Daichi. I’m Satoru. You can call me Toru. It’s nice to meet you. D’you wanna go play tag with me? Grandma doesn’t wanna…”  
  
“Daichi has to eat first”, Aiko called from where she had already moved to the enormous fridge.  
  
The kitchen, Daichi now noticed, was a large room with beautiful interior of dark sleek wood and classic marble in warm cream colors. The curtains were of a light lacy fabric and fluttered with a breeze from the tilted kitchen window.  
It was so homely and pretty and real that the reason of him being here seemed like a crime, like an insult to the beauty of this house and all its feautures.  
  
“Yeah…”, Toru said and then turned gingerly back to Daichi to whisper a secretive “Later…“ before running outside through the back porch door screaming “I’LL BE WITH GRANDPA!!!”  
  
Daichi straightened then, with a tiny sigh and his gaze still locked on where Toru had vanished, and wondered whether he had ever seen him.  
  
“Not his, then?”, he asked when he heard a plate clatter on the kitchen island to his left and turned to find an enormous piece of lime green pie, topped with whipped cream the texture of cotton candy clouds, and a grand glass of blurry lemonade waiting for him with Aiko washing her hands in the sink.  
  
“No…”, she said with her back still to him, wearily, as if wanting to add something else. “My daughter’s. But they look alike.”  
  
“They sure do”, Daichi murmured and picked up the fork ready for him, settling on one of the bar chairs lining a side of the island.  
  
“How old is he?”  
  
“Just turned four. He was born right before the new elites division was formed, the one you belonged to.“  
  
"What about his father?”  
  
“A brilliant youth, handsome. Him and Minako are going to get Toru later. He was an army doctor when it happened, he served near the first division’s front lines, saved lives. Maybe he knows someone you trained with. Maybe you could talk…”  
  
“Yeah, maybe…”

She said it like she didn’t think he’d stay that long and he said it like he wanted to make sure she knew he wouldn’t. This might be a visit but with purpose and once that was done Daichi had no other reason of staying than hurting himself with things he shouldn’t bother worrying about (but would).  
  
Aiko sat down opposite of him, watchful, and Daichi felt the sudden need to both drop the fork and gobble down the pie in mere seconds. Instead, he picked up some of it, conscious of every movement, and led the fork to his mouth. It tasted heavenly, sweet and sour and refreshing and just right for a day like this.  
  
“Good?“, Aiko asked, pulling back a greying streak of hair that had loosened from her hair knot.  
  
"Mmmh.”  
  
“He didn’t like sweets, you know. Never was a candy person. But he loved my pies. Pecan and apple and raspberry jam. Always ate them from crust to center because he liked the middle part most. ‘The true heart of a pie‘, he always said, ‘The one place where the pie is pie-est‘.”  
  
She told the story with a light-heartedness that was so incredibly well-faked that Daichi asked himself how many people bothered her with this. How many girlfriends and neighbors and friends from school made her talk when he himself couldn’t even bear the thought. Her eyes betrayed her nonetheless, empty with sadness, mirrors to a harsh and ever-lasting winter in a heart made for spring.  
  
“That sounds like him.”, Daichi admitted after a long look at her and put his fork down to have some lemonade before she could remind him to.  
  
“This is lovely.”  
  
“Well, thank you.”  
  
Her smile, and the line of her nose as she looked past him out the window, the way light and shadow played with her features, it was almost too much.  
  
“You said you wanted a picture”, she suddenly popped, as if the sole fact had been burning under her skin all this time.  
  
“If it’s no bother. I never got one and now…”  
  
She looked at him for a long time after that, studying and knowing and a little scary.  
  
“Like that, huh.”  
  
“No…no, we were just…friends. Good friends.”  
  
“Do you want to see his room?”  
  
“What?”  
  
*********  
  
_The shadows of the flames are painting pictures onto his face, red and golden and black._ _  
  
__Daichi looks away and lowers his gaze onto the plate in his hands with a grin._ _  
  
__“This…”, Bokuto slurs with too much energy for an early winter night, “…is the best pie I have ever had. Like. Honestly, I can’t remember when I had a pie as good as this one the last time.“_ _  
  
__"Probably the last time you had pie“, Kuroo mutters and everyone laughs comfortably.  
Their gazes meet from across the fireside and for a second Kuroo flashes teeth in an almost canine grin before shoving a piece of crust into his mouth._ _Daichi wonders whether Kuroo’s ears are red from the heat of the campfire or something else._ _  
  
__"You know what, Kuroo…”, Bokuto drawls, raising his fork and pointing the spikes at Kuroo’s chest. “You are 100% right. Pie is great. This cherry pie is great. Where the fuck is my bottle?”_ _  
  
__He looks around, anxious over losing his drink for a moment, before a smile lights up his face even more than the fire does. Bokuto then raises the beer, pretending it is more than that, and gets up himself as if pulled by it. Nodding the bottle in Kuroo’s direction, Bokuto speaks:_ _  
  
__“To Tetsu, my best friend and friendly donor of all his savings and thus of this beautiful piece of art in his birthday’s honor. I’m not sure whether I mean the beer or the pie and so be it because probably both. Anyway… May you live a long and happy life with your figurative and most importantly literal cherry pie.”_ _  
  
__„Hear, hear“, they toast, all drinks in hands, and as Daichi lifts his bottle to his lips by its neck and tastes the malty acerbity of ithe beer his gaze meets Kuroo’s again, doing the same.  
__It is obscene, simply put, the way Kuroo’s lips pull around the bottle opening as if still smirking slyly. Kuroo pulls off with a pop, and winks at Daichi, before getting up himself._

_“Thank you, y’all”, he begins, broad like a highway but much more tipsy than one._

_“I really appreciate being able to spend my eighteenth in such wonderful company. Except for you, Nol, no one talks about you. Get lost.”_

_Everyone laughs again about the inside joke they share, a simple amusement only as funny as it is because all of them know what it is about; all of them were there when it has happened._ _Nol, a stick-thin lanky guy with a stamina problem and a stomach made for seven pies at once, flips a bird at Kuroo with a broad affectionate grin, adding to the snickering all around and allows him to continue only after Kuroo throws him an air-kiss with a wink.  
  
__„Let’s be real, training sucks asssss.“ Kuroo opens his arms to include all of it, the set-up and the daily routines and the individual special training they were not yet used to.  
"But. At least we are all in this together. At least we are not alone and hopefully will finish this bullshit before Snake bites off one of our heads, which, let’s be even more real, is worse than fucking_ dying _.”_ _  
  
__Their faces are serious here, no one jokes around with Snake, not even Kuroo. Not anymore, anyway, Daichi thinks with a small smile and remembers that very first day and that very first time Kuroo has fucked with authority. Authority, as it turns out, fucks back real good._ _  
  
__Almost six months have passed since then and by now winter has come around the corner of a rainy, stormy fall made for warm cocoa and good books and not outside mud tracks and week long survival training with no equipment whatsoever except for a single army knife._ _  
  
__It is the third night all of them are back at camp from another training session in the woodlands, more or less healthy and unbroken (although Daichi’s ribs still hurt from the fractures he suffered three weeks ago) and it is also the 17th of November; an honorable day, as Kuroo reminded him about a month ago, since it is the celebration day of his birth and_ that _should be a national holiday, in all honesty (Kuroo looked almost offended that it wasn’t_ yet _), and everyone should not forget to prepare him some presents._  
_Daichi ignored him as always until Kuroo was lying under him on the ground, panting and sweating, battled and beaten again._ _  
“Don’t expect a present from me", Daichi grinned and Kuroo just grunted in return, chest heavy with Daichi’s knee pressing down on it, hard._

_“So”, Kuroo’s voice, rough-edged and silky in its controversy, pulls Daichi back into the present, making frisson run down his spine.  
“Here’s to another half year of pain and sleepless nights and kicking ass. Everyone with no present today: I expect double next year. I’ll hunt you down.“_ _  
  
_ _Kuroo empties his bottle with a long, drawn-out sip full of undoubtful meaning and everyone follows after another „Hear, hear!” in his honor._ _  
  
_ _Kuroo’s baggy army pants cling loosely to his hips, Daichi notices as if for the first time, loose enough to almost fall off if not to be held by his suspenders worn over the thin, skin-tight black top on the one end and his high-laced combat boots he stuffed most of the pant leg in, on the other._ _  
He gained muscle, is Daichi’s last thought before he catches himself and looks away at once, hoping no one has noticed him staring. It is bad enough Kuroo more often than not does._

_Their little group around their little campfire loosens up after that, some guys go to sleep with the knowledge of inevitable twenty mile runs looming in the distance of the next morning, some dissolve into twos and threes.  
Yaku, who is sitting next to Daichi, straightens and yawns._ _  
“Goodnight”, Daichi beats him to it and Yaku smiles as he pats Daichi's back and wishes him one in return, stepping out of the log circle and vanishing into the all-encompassing darkness outside of it._ _  
  
__The moment the spot to his left empties Daichi begins to count in his head._ _He reaches ’twenty-four’ when he notices movement out of the corner of his eye, scheming shadows moving as he stares into the fire.  
__At ’thirty-seven’ a weight settles by his side, a scent of dark forests and rifle grease and chocolate and Daichi almost leans into it, the bodily warmth less burning but deeper, more whole than the one bathing him from the front._ _  
He wants to feel sleepy but Kuroo’s shoulder nudging his makes that impossible; instead he is simply tipsy and simply warm despite the chilly wind.  
It is cold for November but within their camp, bubbles of protection seem to include everything, more and more so to the inside, like a dome inside a dome inside a dome of comfort and a weird feeling of home._ _  
  
__“Hey”, Kuroo says finally, as if he has not already sat there for minutes._ _  
  
__“Hey”, Daichi says back, ignoring that he has. He considers, seconds feeling like ages, and adds: “Happy Birthday,…nerd.“_ _  
  
__Kuroo laughs, then, breathy and excited and Daichi’s inside goes warm warm warm, as if the fire slowly burning down settled right in his chest where his heart should be._ _  
  
__"Thank you”, Kuroo says and teeters to the side, bumping into Daichi again, gentle and fond.  
“No present?“, he asks, voice low and teasing, but when Daichi looks up he just averts his gaze and hastily finishes the pie Daichi now sees he has brought over with him, in_ _a few quick strikes_ _, ending with the pointy center piece last._  
  
_“Good thinking“, Daichi laughs, a little strained because of the blush settling in Kuroo’s cheeks, deep red in the light of the fire, and forks up the last piece of his own crust to chew on it in peaceful silence only interrupted by the low voices of boys nearby, the barely perceptible snoring of a passed out Bokuto somewhere across from them and the crackling of wood. Romantic, a little._ _  
  
__Kuroo points at Daichi’s empty paper plate and raises an eyebrow.  
_

_“Mind if I…?”_ _  
  
_ _When Daichi nods, he takes it, crumples their plates up together to form a vague ball shape and throws it into the fire. The flames rise, close around it like a hungry animal’s jaws and kiss each other making the white disappear rapidly within the red._ _  
Daichi’s cheeks burn._ _  
  
_ _He glances over quickly and there Kuroo is, looking at him, ears red and mouth soft and eyes steady._ _  
  
_ _“Mind if I…?”_ _  
  
_ _Again, Daichi nods and anticipates the movement but not the coolness of the thumb lying down on his chin, a welcome contrast to the heat Daichi is sure is radiating off his face in waves. Kuroo brushes past the corner of Daichi’s mouth to dust away the crumbs, once, with precision and a furrow between his sharp brows, and then, then again, after a few seconds of hesitation, after looking up into Daichi’s eyes to find them….what?_ _Daichi isn’t sure what his eyes are saying but it must have affirmed Kuroo, because he glances back down, and his thumb comes to rest on Daichi’s bottom lip gentle and good, and pulls across, fingernail scraping along Daichi’s top lip lightly. The sensation robs Daichi of every loose thought, his head spins like from a carrousel ride but much better than that.  
_

_Two words, just two words, so_ so _simple._  

_Kuroo’s hand falls from Daichi’s face, long fingers brushing over jawline and neckline and hooking around the collar of Daichi’s tee for just a second before dropping back into his own lap. Huh. What a curious feeling of disappointment this is, losing the touch._ _  
_

_Two words may be really hard to say but stretching out a hand to pull someone else in by their own shirt collar is probably just fine for a night like this._

_Daichi is pretty sure the campfire logs are empty when he finally kisses Kuroo and everything goes hazy and surreal._ _  
__They sure are when Daichi finally has had enough._  
  
*********  
  
The door opened not with a creak of wood nor a squeak of hinges but with a smooth sound; one that Daichi immediately knew was specific to this door and specific to this room. It was the sound of early mornings and lingering yawns stuck in your throat, the feeling of comfort and control and home.

The room was impeccable. Daichi had expected to find Satoru’s things in here; it would only make sense to let him use it as his own but apparently memory was not supposed to be overwritten. They kept it all, it was so very obvious.  
Aiko moved in with two steps behind him, stopping just as she crossed the threshold, as if scared to contaminate the sanctuary she had tried so hard to preserve, the little piece that remained intact, the little bit of lost hope still occupying the room like a ghost.

“It’s his", she said behind him as Daichi’s eyes try to make himself look, at the two-colored walls and the solid oak desk and the single bed dressed in pure white sheets.

“It’s his and we decided not to change it. I would appreciate if you…“ she stopped, as if something about Daichi made her think he had enough sensibility in himself to not disturb anything.

Daichi looked back and her face was as empty as her smiles, layers of serenity and indifference stretched tight over it, like a second, dead skin.

"I will be careful. Thank you very much.”

Aiko looked at him then, once, hard, piercing, pulling a promise from deep inside his guts and smearing it all over his mouth without Daichi having to say a thing.

“I will leave you alone.”

And just like that the door swung close - door sound - and Daichi was all by himself, surrounded.

He stepped up to the window first, pulled the curtains back to let some light in and looked outside at the back yard he had not yet seen. The grass was emerald with luxury and wealth back there, disgustingly so, considering the heat, and Satoru was working on getting a grill fire started with a man who Daichi tried not to recognize. Tall even bent over, broad shoulders and long legs and Daichi knew if he would lift his head there’d be a possibility for a sharp grin carved into the strong line of his mouth, mischief glittering like diamond sparkle in his eyes.

Daichi turned away abruptly, and faced the room again.

It was holy, he realized with sunlight hitting the dustless surfaces and making them gleam; every piece here was holy and untouchable, like a museum’s exhibit, preserving life, faking it.

Daichi thought, a bit and another and decided the bookshelf was the safest place for him now. There were classics, old Americans and some well-read book titled „The Idiot", there were a bunch of maganizes and a row of comic books, there were medals. Medals and a photograph on the top shelf and Daichi crouched down immediately to avoid looking at it, and pulled from the one just above the floor a thick thing; a tome that could be nothing less than a photo album.

It was well kept, and old, and Daichi handled it carefully as he placed it on the desktop with meticulous precision, slowly. Not yet.

There was a closet. A build in wooden cabinet, heavy and leggy and Daichi thought that things like smells don’t preserve that well when he pulled open the doors. Oak, most likely and him, oh, _oh_.

An army short sleeve, just like the one Daichi was wearing, dust colored and bleak from being washed too many times hung limply on a wire hanger and Daichi’s hand reached out to touch the fabric without permission.  
It was stiff, cold and empty and Daichi pulled it out, pressed his face into the layers and wrinkles and…nothing. There was nothing, it could have been Daichi’s or anybody’s, freshly washed and aching for his skin to leave a scent, leave a trace, leave something to own.

Daichi hung the hanger back and closed the doors behind him, exiting that possibility now before he would dig through every last shirt of his just to find a memory. He turned again, back leaning against the door, handles biting his flesh. He was feeling restless with longing, an intruder, voyeurism, and Daichi pushed away from the doors to grab the photo album with both hands and settle, quiet, suddenly, at the end of his perfectly made bed.

Daichi threw a look at the pillow, seeming so far away, right there, and figured it wouldn’t be worth it. The pages of the album felt bendy between his fingertips, like parchment folded a few times, not easy to break but trusty with endless visits.

Daichi took his time. Every photograph was like a punch to the stomach, excruciating and possibly lethal; baby pictures, naked and rosy on blankets, cute and squishy in jumpers and arms; childhood running along page after page, first words and first steps and first times eating with spoons with tiny magical hands, first bikes with three wheels and first bikes with four turning into two, first days of school, dressed up like a sailor holding mom’s fingers, it was breathtaking and beautiful and light with innocence; Daichi couldn’t remember how he got there but suddenly he was sixteen and grinning like a freak sitting astride his first motorcycle and he looked just like he did back then, on that very first day, and, from one moment to the other, it all broke down smoothly in Daichi’s chest like a skyscraper being blown-up in slow-motion, when a dirty dark drop of salt water splashed and ruined the page.  
Daichi turned it, quickly, him in tuxedo, beautiful girl with long hair in his arm; it was prom. Him in line smiling, an ironic peace sign up in the air, about to sign up. Him the day he got his uniform, sand-colored cotton climbing his legs and wrapping his shoulders and he was grinning with joy, brimming with life, Daichi was choking and pushed the album a little up his knees to save it from the rain that poured out his eyes, a gentle finger kissing his picture-jaw, grieving, alone.

Daichi wanted this one, this last one, he finally decided, when he couldn’t tell how long he’d been staring, a minute or a hundred of them, when his lungs finally gave way for air. There were only two more pages in the album, ones that Aiko had filled with him coming home before leaving again and Daichi couldn’t look at those; couldn’t make himself look. They had been taken after they met, they were something Daichi had seen with his eyes, they were out of question.

He laid the album down on the tabletop softly and wiped away his tears with the back of his hand, looking around for a pair of scissors he could use to gently remove the picture. There were none, even after a second look, and Daichi figured he had to invade privacy again. Although, he thought bitterly, how much privacy could he really claim, leaving him like this, in despair, by himself, _dying_.

Daichi pulled open a drawer carefully. It was filled with pencil cases and pens, rubber bands and no scissors. The pencils were bitten down on, what a terrible habit, what a terrible boy he had been.  
The sound closing the drawer made still echoed as Daichi opened a second one and rumbled through it a little. At the bottom of what appeared to be a stack of blank papers with no meaning to them Daichi found what he had searched for and more of what he had never needed.

The scissors lay atop a drawing, graphite on white, his own face was staring back at him as if he was looking into a mirror. Or not quite, pencil-Daichi’s face was turned slightly, his gaze moved past the viewer’s to some more distant place in another dimension.  
Daichi pulled them out, him and him again and some scenery he recognizes as the camp and him. He flipped them, there was a note in a well-known hand: Sawamura Daichi, July 3122; Daichi, 3122; Tents, January 1st 3123; Him, 3123.

A piece of paper slipped out, with terrible obviousness, from in-between the sheets Daichi was holding, the sound when the solid edge of it hit the table sounded like glass rubbing against glass; it was a photograph, colorless and a little crumpled from the many times it had been taken into hands.

Daichi could feel more tears rising and swallowed them down, tried again and again until he finally managed some composure. He remembered that day, it had been warm with summer glimmering somewhere just out of reach, and their last exam finally in the past. He remembered that day, it had been Bokuto who took the picture with an old camera he somehow had managed to bring with. He remembered that day, he remembered that kiss, and how achingly soft his mouth had been against Daichi’s, how perfectly his hands had fit around the contours of Daichi’s face, holding him like something holy, graceful and precious and dear.

Daichi remembered that day and he had too, as it seemed and the tears were little fucking bastards for being good enough to trick Daichi into letting them pass.  
Love, Daichi read, on the back of it, turning the photograph with trembling hands. Love, 3123.  
  
*********  
  
_„Bane, Kialu, Yaku, Morgenstern, Nol, Kritikos, Li, Sawamura; stay in the middle, please. Bokuto, Finnick, Stepanov, Teacup, Ali, Stevens, Kuroo, Birch; to the right.“_

_Snake looks at them, and despite his confusion about what will be happening next Daichi is sharp enough to notice the pride in her eyes._ _Exams are over, they have all passed, surprisingly, or not so much, and summer is following them like a stray, watchful and almost there to be pet.  
_

_There is melancholy in this part, losing a year of home to real home, losing ties to people you learned were yours. Daichi will miss Snake, as he will miss Cherry, as he will miss Kuroo, obviously, but not for long; Three months from now, by September 1st, they will be called back in for duty, the break an intentional reminder that life is still real and families still exist, that holding it together is more important than holding the party together, that there is something worth fighting for._

_They have been divided, three groups of eight, and Daichi figures it is a last game, a last task to compete in and complete before they will be send off to pack their bags. Tomorrow is their last day here._ _  
It has been fun, really, after all. Daichi did get blisters learning how to kill a person with two fingers of a single hand but it reminds him of playing the guitar: the more often you do it the better they get, both him and the blisters._ _  
They were made killers, machines without mercy trained to destroy and devour and dismember in seconds but Daichi feels no less human. In fact, he thinks, smiling privately and stealthily glancing over to his left to where Kuroo is standing in line next to Steven (whose full name is Steven Stevens, like, honestly), the hard line of his body taut like a violin string in highest keys; in fact he has never felt as vulnerably human as he does now, knowing what he knows and_ feeling _._

_"Cadets”, Snake kisses the word out of her mouth like venom, like something too sweet to be palatable. Rotten pride._

_“It has been a year and I will say little. You all did well. Or as well as your meager abilities allowed. At least you are not cancer on my eyes anymore.”_

_She sighs, almost. It comes close to it, the deep heaving of her chest. So much emotion…_

_“I divided you…“, Clark continues, slowly marching up and down their ranks as she likes to do, form impeccable as always, “…into three groups. They have little to do with your abilities or compatability and more with your future operation site. The decision to split you up was not made by me but apparently special forces are needed everywhere and there are not enough of you._ _I refused to make your groups smaller. Your locations will be far from each other, you will find details within the documents you will receive this summer. Transferral…“, she glances at Daichi and then away when she notices his face of stone, ”…will not be possible. Good luck, cadets. I do hope you will survive the next year just as you managed this one. Learn to risk and risk to learn. Goodbye.“_

_Snake finishes her march back in the middle of the line-up and salutes once, curtly, before marching off, as it seems, for the last time. Pepper and Viper, her helping hands, emerge from the office tent to, as always, take any questions and answer them._

_Daichi feels as if he has been holed out and filled with liquid concrete instead. His legs are rooted to the floor, his hands clasped behind his back, he can neither move nor breathe. Not the same division. Not the same location. No transferrals possible. Something is going terribly wrong._

_He can feel his face turn red with suppressed rage and lack of oxygen. Not together. Serving apart. He won’t see him. For a year. And then another year. No tranferrals possible. No transferrals possible. Wrong. Wrongwrongwro-_

_"Love”, a tired whisper in his ear, a hand sneaking onto his waist, “what are you so beautifully sad about?”_

_Kuroo’s lips are brushing Daichi’s ear as he speaks and Daichi melts like ice cream in the sun, turning into Kuroo’s touch, coiling and needy._

_“What I’m sad about?”, he asks when Kuroo’s fingers dig into the fabric of his tank, pulling ever so gently, like an invitation not yet spoken aloud._

_„Don’t you remember what you told me? And now we aren’t even going to die together.“_

_It is a lame attempt at a joke but Kuroo still laughs softly into Daichi’s ear, hand moving to take Daichi’s and actually pull this time, an airy ‘let’s go get away’ in a situation stuffed with presence._

_"We were never supposed to die together, I remember that”, Kuroo says, hushed but audible, through a grin rough at the edges and full inbetween._

_“We were supposed to live long and grow old in a southern-style finca by the sea. Though, we do need our soldier pension to afford that.”_

_They have removed themselves from the noise, wandering off and around a little aimlessly but hand-in-hand and thus always already where they have been headed all along._ _  
The woods go just the right kind of silent around them, light falling through the leaves and birds singing like in a fairytale and Daichi feels the bitterness leave him as if the wind rustling through the branches is cleansing him of it._

_“Sometimes I wish….sometimes I wish we could be normal people with normal jobs and I wouldn’t have to worry.”_

_“Don’t worry", Kuroo replies immediately, smirking. “I’m the best.“_

_Daichi clicks his tongue in a condescending way and throws Kuroo a playfully contemptuous look he catches with another grin, somewhat more coy, this time. Somewhat more lethal._

_"You know what I mean“, they say in unison, one voice resigned and the other sheepish._

_It takes them a second to burst into laughter and it’s freeing, a safe kind of laugh to laugh when you hold your best friends hand._ _How scary can the thoughts of never seeing him again be, here, in the loveliest part of the forest, bound within a temporary magical world of peace and sunshine and unicorns._

_Cherry is an old oak, a tree so ancient Daichi wonders whether it isn’t a founder, its branches covering 25 feet in radius, leafy shadow making shivers play piano up Daichi’s exposed arms._ _  
Daichi used to sit here all the time, leaned against the bark, when they have had time to themselves, in the early morning hours and late at night, feeling the life pulsing through the tree as if an actual heart was beating within it._  
_Thus, feeling the roughness of the black treeskin against his shoulder blades is familiar, almost as trusted as the hands pulling at his tank to feel skin as they push him against the tree, almost as intimate as the lips burning marks into the sun-dark skin of Daichi’s neck._

_"I don’t…“, Daichi wants to say and groans instead with the sheer irresistibility of it, the dangerous feeling of losing himself in a contact of lips on lips yet again.  
God, he is scared._

_"Yeah?“, the word comes, mumbled against Daichi’s skin._ _  
  
__"I don’t want…to say goodbye…”_ _  
  
__And Kuroo looks up into Daichi’s eyes and smiles, soft like sunrise satin clouds. “Then don’t.”_ _  
__God, he is addicted and he is not scared.  
_  
***  
  
_Sunshine  
Plain field, dirt mounds.  
Close your eyes.  
Deep breath cool handle black metal. Bearing death.  
You shoot precise. The bullet hits.  
Magazine of 9, 7 dead.  
—  
—  
_ telegraph for sawamura daichi, 09-29-3123: _  
DAICHI, you’re on the list. How dare you, it’s been a month and you’re already on the list. I want to say I’m impressed. I really want to._ _Bo says he’s proud of you. Write.  
Yours forever, Tetsu  
—  
—  
RED  
PAIN  
RED  
BLOOD_ _  
BLOOD_ _  
BLOOD  
__“PUT ON PRESSURE, YES THERE, KEEP THE WOUND CLOSED. FUCK. FUCK, IT’S TOO MUCH BLOOD. FUCK! SAWAMURA, SAWAMURA STAY WITH ME. CAN YOU HEAR ME?”  
__lost  
—  
—  
_ telegraph for sawamura daichi, 11-10-3123: _  
Daichi,_ _how is your leg? You are such a fucking idiot, getting injured the third month on call. They better take good care of you, I sent some threats. Write.  
__Yours forever, Tetsu  
—  
—  
wet rain not blood rain not blood rain  
__blurry vision good god what silence you exert, what grace  
__„SHIT. You SON of a BITCH, i will KILL YOU!“_ _  
The bullets always sang their own tune, delicate melody for one, pitter-patter ratatat.  
Blood,  
Blood, everywhere. How red. How dead. You are, not me. Pain.  
—  
—  
_ telegraph for sawamura daichi, 12-31-3123: _  
19, Sawamura. You’re fucking old. Be glad I’m older. I miss you. Please wish for something useful tonight. Like a chance to meet. Or beef jerky. Write._ _  
Yours forever, Tetsu  
—  
—_ _  
Pain, again, again, agony._ _  
whispered "Left, left, left, yes, good. Quiet now. Wait for it. Wait for it…NOW. COME ON, YOU FUCK-UPS.”  
__tetsutetsutetsutetsutetsutetsu  
BAM. quiet. It’s always quiet when you shoot, unnatural. It’s the one you know.  
Helmet policy. Hitman style. MOVE IN, MOVE IN NOW  
—  
—  
_ telegraph for sawamura daichi, 3-21-3124: _  
I’M SUCH A LOSER. can you believe it. I finally had someone injure me today, a cut above my right brow, looks pretty badass, ngl. You’ll love it. Write._ _  
Yours forever, Tetsu  
—  
—_ _  
Pain, again again again. Lortab, Norco, Vicodin._ _  
Run, boy, run, AIM RIGHT PLAY FAST DIE HARD; God planted a devil in you, God planted a devil. It’s in you, it’s in you, it’s gonna  
fuck it (you) good  
Best shot, best shot, tell him now, tell him, tell him you love him, tell him now.  
Last shot. Do it.  
-_ _-_ _-  
—  
_ telegraph for sawamura daichi,  5-15-3124: _  
Sawamura Daichi,_ _this is a courtesy. Your last telegraph has not been delivered. No more telegraphs will be delivered. Kuroo Tetsurou fell in battle yesterday, the 14th of May, 3124. Please refrain from sending any more mail. Condolences and goodbye,_ _  
The Guardians  
_  
*********  
  
He was unstable, empty. When Sawamura Daichi came down the stairwell one step at a time, Kuroo Aiko could see he had been crying. His eyes were red and his cheeks were swollen with more than just the gentle puffiness they had originally harbored, having given him the slight look of squishy cheeks grandmas would love to pinch. She would like to, Aiko thought, and then realized belatedly, that she was, in fact, a grandma now. She also realized that her son had chosen well, as he often did.

Daichi looked broken, like a bottle someone bit the neck off of to spill out its contents and fill it with emptiness. It looked like nothing was in there but, _oh_ , Aiko knew, empty never really meant empty.  
Feeling empty meant feeling such utter, irreparable despair that your mind would rather shut down on it than suffer the consequences of the agony coming along with the loss.  
Feeling empty meant smiling when people want to see you smile and crying when people expect it of you and hiding everything under layers of well-rehearsed companionship and _empathy,_ as if you cared, what they would think.  
As if anybody could be killed more by the death of their child than a mother. As if anyone understood…  
  
He didn’t, but it was close. It made Aiko consider letting him know that she knew about what he had really meant to Tetsurou, what her son had told her before going back to the hell hole he died in for absolutely nothing instead of picking up this intelligent handsome boy and go live a life somewhere, anywhere, close or far away, in poverty or wealth, but safe. Alive, for God’s sake, he had been _alive_ and now…  
  
“If you would allow…“, Daichi began, voice hoarse with tears that Aiko knew were tasting bitter and treacherous. Him and her, they should not cry tears. They should have never let them happen. They should have _saved_ …  
  
“The picture? Of course, if it’s this one you want. Only this one?“  
  
“It’s more than enough, thank you.“  
  
He clasped the photograph in a heavy way, pulled and captivating, like a dragon guarding its treasure, like he wasn’t planning on ever letting go of it again.  
Aiko admired him, she admitted to herself, for not letting go when she long would have. He was a determined little face, it was obvious in everything, in his posture and his politeness and the way he stood, power of the sort that isn’t arrogant or overwhelming, power of a sort that comes from hard work and practice and lurks just under one’s skin to come out when you need it to and only then.  
Daichi cleared his voice and bowed, traditional and in a way Aiko had not seen since her youth, in a way she had not even taught her children by lack of knowledge. Now, she regretted, a bit.  
  
“I should get going. Thank you for everything. I just wondered…could I pick some of the roses lining your porch? For later…”  
  
“You want to visit…"  
  
“Yes, of course.“  
  
“Well, then. The roses are all yours.”  
  
He tried hard, to walk away steadily as he smiled soft with thankfulness and turned to limp to the front door. She was grateful for it. The graveyard made her feel like ripping her hair out with bare hands and clawing the skin off her face, it was not a place she found any peace at, as they always say you would.  
Daichi bringing him some roses from home was a gesture the boy probably didn’t understand the grandness of; he didn’t know that Tetsurou used to buy her roses every time he got the chance to, mother’s day and birthday and easter; she got them just like that, standing in the crystal vase her grandma gave to her, on the kitchen table with a little card attached: „For Mom", it always read as if she needed it, to know.

How silly he had died, how unfortunate, how unimportant. Blood infection. Aiko stopped thinking of it and closed her eyes for a second that felt eternal. The door pulled open by her hands and Daichi stepped outside into the dry noon heat.

“Do you have water?“, she asked, not unkind as was her way, and Daichi turned back and nodded, smiling again, that way that reminded her of herself so terribly painfully. She didn’t want to let him in, Tetsurou had been _her_ son and hers to mourn but this boy…  
  
“I do. In the trunk. Thank you, Aiko. Goodbye.“  
  
“Promise to come visit again.”  
  
She didn’t know where it had come from and he looked at her, sad and disappointed. You should know better, Aiko.  
  
“I promise.“  
  
Sawamura Daichi left her home the same way he had come, down the dusty driveway that was glimmering in the heat, more now than ever. She could not imagine the suffering it all was invoking, the weight it lay, the roses in his arms, the leg he pulled behind him as if it was not his, an alien part of a body he had lost connection to. She didn’t remember how she found out he had lost it, his mind _and_ his leg, she didn’t remember. Someone had told her, she thought, had it not been Koutarou?  
  
“Goodbye“, Kuroo Aiko said to nobody in particular, to the boy leaving her house and the ghost of the boy leaving with him, to the part of her heart where he had been, once. It felt like a million years ago, that day he told her.  
  
_“Mom, I think I fell in love.”_  
  
*********  
  
_“The moon is so pretty.“_ _  
  
__Daichi looks up at once and smiles. It is. The moon is pretty, round and golden and ethereal, another planet from another world. A dream thing._ _  
  
__“It’s so weird, having you say that“, Daichi smiles still, broader now, mouth a cut between butterfly wings of full lips and straight teeth._ _  
  
__"Is it?” Kuroo asks and sighs, right behind it, in a dramatic whole-lunged way, realizing how very rhetorical his question really is. The heaving of his chest tickles against Daichi’s vertebrae._ _  
Kuroo’s arm, covered in a blanket of goose-bumps, pulls the topmost quilt up to Daichi’s chin; it’s a hideous red-and-grey checkered one but Daichi knows Kuroo had to look out for more important things than color combinations when ~~stealing~~ borrowing the stacks of covers from the winter supply closet._ _  
  
__It is late April and the night still cold with the outskirts of snowy storms and frost blowing its crystal deathspell onto meadows and branches and people, if they don’t cover themselves up properly._ _  
  
__“Get under here“, Daichi says to Kuroo but means his arm, really, and Kuroo’s arm obliges as Kuroo’s mouth pulls into a grin Daichi can’t see, having his back pressed to its origin’s owner, but feel in the brush against his hair where Kuroo presses his face against Daichi like a kitten begging for affection, just with less purring._ _  
  
__"Yes, Sir“, and Kuroo’s arm is cold like pulled from a freezer, his hand on Daichi’s hot chest causes shivers to run up to his eyebrows and down to his toes, even to…_ _  
  
__As if Kuroo can read his mind, and sometimes Daichi swears he can, his hands wander off slowly, casually yet full of attention, finger past finger making its way down Daichi’s abs and crossing the bridge of his hips farther down his thigh, as far as Kuroo can reach inside their blanket burrito._ _  
  
__It is nice, spending a few minutes all wrapped up after fucking; it makes it feel like it’s supposed to feel, like more than a quick escapade, even though it sure was quick, the way they lost their clothes, the way Kuroo almost came when Daichi touched him and then really did when Daichi’s mouth closed around him and then again_ in _him._ _  
Daichi doesn’t blame him, the moment Kuroo’s calloused hands touched him like that Daichi felt like he might die, and all that was needed, in the end, was Kuroo letting a soft, gorgeously rich “Daichi…” make it past his lips, like liquid gold pouring into finest champagne glass._

_Daichi tenses up with Kuroo’s teasing caress, in a comfortable, craving way, curling into Kuroo, pressing the curve of his ass back and laughing, breathy and satisfied with the resistance it meets._

_Daichi’s hand gets lost on a way he doesn’t remember it beginning to walk and fingertips kiss a path to freedom up Kuroo’s shoulder and neck to craddle the short hair behind Kuroo’s left ear fondly._

_“Again?”, Kuroo asks, trying hard to hide his eagerness behind a veil of smug grins and smug noise, issuing a challenge as if Daichi needs one.  
As if Daichi will let himself be provoked._

_“Can you?”, he laughs, dripping with curious doubt that he knows will pinch Kuroo’s pride in the right places and sighs, with satisfaction.  
  
“In a bit, maybe…”, he preempts the boasting that would have followed his question.  
“I like this. It’s…”  
_

_Several words climb up Daichi’s throat and he tastes them, tries them one by one before reconsidering each time, “comfortable” and “belonging" and “home”.  
_

_„…nice“, he finishes, finally, but even to his ears it sounds like he means it’s something_ more _. Because it is, he muses, curling his fingers into the spiky ends of Kuroo’s hairline and pulling him down onto his lips with a tug, gentle in its persistence, infinite with the realness of it, the way that Kuroo follows where he leads and takes him in, takes him._

_This, this is everything._

_Kuroo’s mouth fits Daichi’s, like a favorite pair of sweats or sneakers or anything less comfortably disgusting yet more disgustingly comfortable than that would fit.  
It’s good, how it’s not perfect, how they themselves don’t fit like puzzle pieces; it’s good how they break against each other like waves of ocean against bare cliff, brutal like flintstones causing wildfires through friction, sparks, ignition.  
  
He’s burning, Daichi realizes, his cheeks are on fire with the instinctive way he _ wants _, his head feels dizzy as if he’s drunk but not quite so; Kuroo’s hands slide up his bare sides with petal-soft touch and Daichi is burning up for this, all of this and him.  
  
When Kuroo moves his lips to kiss a trail of breadcrumbs made from blood blooming under skin down Daichi’s neck it’s a moan that leaves Daichi first, and then, loud enough for the trees to hear:_

_“I love you.“_

_It’s so very hot inside their wrap-up, so very very hot and Kuroo makes a_ noise _against the tendon tightening Daichi’s shoulder line, a deep moany noise from God knows where, maybe heaven, probably hell, that flows right into the pit of Daichi’s stomach like oil being added to a fire.  
_

_Kuroo will whine, later, but for now it’s okay to claw into the mess of his hair, to pull at it and tug and shift around until it’s comfortable to just_ kiss _him, to just get him to kiss you back and want it, to just want you.  
  
“I love you, Tetsu“, and Kuroo kisses the words out of Daichi’s mouth before they have properly left it, and again and again and it’s not enough, Daichi has more to say, each confession meaning something, cherishing something, his eyes, his mouth, his hands, his way of knowing where to put them, his way of knowing what to say, his way of _ saying it _, him altogether and whole and_ oh _, Daichi is lost, he realizes, completely lost, how did this happen, just how…  
_

_“I love you.”_

_Kuroo’s hands come to rest on Daichi’s cheeks and jaw and his little fingers sit somewhere against Daichi’s earlobes and his thumbs ground him in this moment, forgiving, literal, there._

_“I love you, too, Sawamura. Do you even realize how much?“_

_And when Daichi shakes his head, restricted by Kuroos grip on him, Kuroo swears, fondly, and kisses him proper, lips on lips as if it’s nothing special. It isn’t by now, not anymore._

_“Promise me“, and his gaze grows sincere and fundamental and heavy when he looks into Daichi’s eyes like it’s the last time.  
“Promise we will be together. Promise you will remember how much I love you. You mean everything to me, Sawamura, promise you will remember that. We will finish this course and we will go kick ass and then I will take you home and then I will build a home and I will love you. Promise you’ll remember.” _

_They say special unit soldiers don’t feel pain and sometimes, sometimes that is true but, Daichi wonders, what about a feeling so devastatingly ravishing, an ache so real that it feels like your heart is being torn out of your chest with the whole purpose of being gifted to nobody but him. He wonders, right now, if that ache counts and if it’s okay to feel tear-heavy when it comes, so slow you don’t notice it crept up on you again until you feel like dying in this very moment, just like this, would mean dying the happiest person you could ever be._

_Risk is a construct, Daichi thinks, as he pulls Kuroo in to kiss him again, fingers grabbing uselessly at his bare skin, hasty with yearning. You risk your life every day, doing ordinary things. The increase in risk, when becoming a special unit, is only marginal to the increase in possibility and power and skill it grants. You walk through normal life much more risk-free, if you make it through your war years. If you live or die is, in the end, not really yours to decide or change. It will either happen now or happen later but it will happen like many things in life do: by fate._

_This must be fate, then, Daichi thinks last, he must be my fate, and pushes an answer into Kuroo’s waiting mouth._

_“I promise.”_

_Red, Daichi has found out, is a terrible color, red is this quilt they were covered with to hide them from the wind, red are Kuroo’s lips when Daichi kisses them too many times, but worst of all is the pure red his heart bleeds for this boy, so true, love love love in color; red.  
_

*********  
(Later, Sawamura Daichi found out how very bad at promise-keeping he was.)


End file.
